Week 28 - INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND CULTURAL RESPONSIVENESS

Being an English immigrant, I arrived naive into NZ and pretty much straight into a NZ school. When initially faced with the teacher standards and seeing how much focus was placed on the importance of being culturally responsive I was impressed with the high expectations placed on teachers to explicitly demonstrate a commitment to the bicultural partnership in Aotearoa. Coming from London I had taught in culturally diverse classrooms before, but never had I explicitly thought about adopting different approaches to teaching students from different cultures. 

My exposure to tikanga māori has been positively influenced by my kiwi whānau. Having a kiwi partner and family around me who make it their business to be culturally responsive has sparked an interest for me that I had not expected. Being English I have rarely felt much connection to a culture and have often questioned what it is to be 'English'. Experiencing the rich history and traditions as well as the great sense of pride māori have in being māori has led me to attempt to be far more educated and culturally responsive than I may have been previously. 

Gay (2010) describes culturally responsive pedagogy as teaching 'to and through [students'] personal and cultural strengths, their intellectual capabilities and their prior accomplishments'. I particularly like the part about teaching to and through the students. For me, the whanaungatanga (relationships) is an integral part of being a culturally responsive teacher and in order to teach 'to and through' the students relationships need to first be established.  

In the video above, Russell Bishop discusses some of the issues of māori achievement. He argues that agentic teachers are the ones who will make a difference in māori education - those who allow māori to be involved in the learning conversation. Akonga Māori, the preferred māori way of teaching and learning centres around a form of connectedness whereby the learners are significantly involved in the planning and direction of their own learning (Bishop, 2003; Tiakiwai & Tiakiwai, 2010). The term ako, used to describe learners quite literally means ‘to teach and to learn’ (Bishop, 2003). 

Bishop identifies 6 things that agentic teachers do and do well. 

1. Care for māori as  māori 
2. Have high expectations of māori learners 
3. Create a suitable learning context where māori can bring their own knowledge to their learning experiences
4. Pedagogy promotes positive interactions - provides feedback and feed forward allowing negotiated co-constructed learning experiences
5. Implements a range of teaching strategies
6. Uses evidence of student performance to inform their teaching and communicates this with their students 

In our school, with very few māori students it is all too easy for staff to wonder what their role is in the bicultural partnership of NZ. Some staff are reluctant to take steps to improve their knowledge of tikanga māori. In one conversation this year with my line manager during appraisal, she explained to me that although we may not have many (if any) māori learners in our classrooms, it is our responsibility to educate our students and prepare them to enter  a bicultural society. 

In our HPE department we have employed several strategies that allow us to be culturally responsive:

• Implement NZHPE curriculum through which we teach hauora and personal identity allowing māori students to bring their knowledge and culture to the forefront of class discussions
• Teach a cultural games unit where we investigate and play māori games such as ki o rahi and tapu ae as well as other games from around the word, allowing students to share their history and traditions. 
• Integrate te reo into lessons - the school has te kupu o te wiki (word of the week). I have also enrolled in a te reo course and as a HPE staff we have shared a resource with commonly used words/phrases that we try and use where we can. 

Bishop (2003) advocates for a 'relationship centred education' which is something I am constantly striving to achieve. This may take some changes and I am still working on what I can do to improve in this area but the key, I think, is best put by Savage et al. (2011); 'reform enables students to learn without sacrificing who they are'. 

References

Bishop, R. (2003). Changing Power Relations in Education: Kaupapa Ma ¯ori messages for “mainstream” education in Aotearoa/New Zealand [1]. Comparative Education, 39(2), 221–238. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050060302555

Edtalks.(2012, September 23). A culturally responsive pedagogy of relations. [video file].Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/49992994

Potahu, T. W. (2011). Mauri - Rethinking Human Wellbeing. MAI Review, 3, 1-12. Retrieved from http://www.review.mai.ac.nz/index.php/MR/article/v...

Savage,C, Hindleb, R., Meyerc,L., Hyndsa,A., Penetitob, W. & Sleeterd, C.(2011) Culturally responsive pedagogies in the classroom: indigenous student experiences across the curriculum .Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 39(3), 183–198: (Available to download from Unitec Library)

Tiakiwai, S., & Tiakiwai, H. (2010). A literature review focused on Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) and e-Learning in the context of Te Reo Māori and Kaupapa Māori education. Retrieved from http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/72670/936_LitRev-VLEs-FINALv2.pdf